


Jon's New Coworker, His Tragic Backstory, And A Serial Killer

by Pash_12



Category: Jon's Mysteries - AJ Sherwood
Genre: ACE PRIDE, Canon Queer Character, Canon Queer Relationship, Dealing With Trauma, Disability, FBI, Guide Dog, My Favorite Murder, Original Character(s), Other, Podcast, Psychic Abilities, Psychometry, Queer Friendly, actual bombs, cadaver dog, murderino bffs, the goodest service dogs, transgender awesomeness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:42:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26428051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pash_12/pseuds/Pash_12
Summary: Psy Investigative hires an ex-FBI psychic with psychometry abilities. He links some human remains to a serial killer, and then somebody plants a bomb under Jon's car...TW: mental health issues, PTSD, bombs, discussion of past violence
Relationships: BFF - Relationship, platonic - Relationship, work friends - Relationship
Comments: 8
Kudos: 48





	Jon's New Coworker, His Tragic Backstory, And A Serial Killer

**Author's Note:**

> TW: mental health issues, PTSD, bombs, discussion of past violence

Jon’s New Coworker, His Tragic Backstory, And A Serial Killer  
By Pash (they/them)

Jon:  
You know it’s going to be an interesting day when the FBI calls before breakfast. I was just getting the leftover quiche out of the fridge.  
“It’s Agent Freeman,” Donovan told me. He set his cell phone down on the counter far enough away from me for it to be safe. “You’re on speaker, Agent.”  
“Freeman,” I said. “You can tell I love you, because this is my first cup of coffee and we’re talking. What’s up?”  
“Hey, Jon. Is Jim looking to hire another psychic?”  
“Why? Are you leaving the FBI?” I asked. Jim would probably break about six laws if he had to in order to hire somebody like Agent Freeman.  
“No, but my friend has. He’s in Nashville for a few weeks. I was hoping to get him an interview.”  
“Then you should really be calling Jim.”  
“He’s my next call.”  
“He’s probably going to be interested. We’ve been overloaded lately.”  
“That’s good to hear. You’ll like Arch. His specialty’s psychometry. I’ll let you finish your coffee. Bye, thanks.”  
I made a noise that was vaguely affirmative and kinda unprofessional. But it was soooo early. Agent Freeman hung up.   
Donovan handed me a plate of warm quiche.  
“You are a magical person and I love you,” I told him.  
“Did you notice he didn’t mention this guy’s anchor? Don’t all the FBI psychics have one?” said Don.  
I blinked. I hadn’t noticed. I replayed the conversation in my head real quick. Donovan was right. “Yeah, they do. And he didn’t. Huh.” I turned my attention to the quiche, because breakfast was more important than solving this particular mystery.  
We barely made headway with ANY mystery all morning. There was a particularly nasty case of possible fraud on Carol’s desk especially. I couldn’t help thinking that a good psychometrist would solve it in about a day. Carol could do it, but it’s not her specialty and she wasn’t getting a good read on any part of it, especially since a lot of it was paperwork that passed through a lot of hands.  
I wasn’t procrastinating on the reports I was supposed to be writing and the invoices I was supposed to be submitting to Sharon before she killed me. I promise. Some days just feel like slogging through molasses trying to focus on stuff. Donovan and I were just about to leave for lunch when a pale man walked in with a rottweiler in a guide dog harness.  
“Is this Psy Investigative Agency?” I overheard him asking. From his accent, he was certainly native to the south somewhere. A little twangy. Maybe Texas?  
Marcy told him it was and asked what she could do to help him. The standard receptionist spiel.  
Even if I weren’t psychic, I would’ve been able to tell this was Freeman’s friend. His suit absolutely screamed “government agent.” It fit like he’d recently lost a significant amount of weight and his aura was awash with grief. I could tell he was recovering from something major in a lot of ways. He was maybe in his mid-thirties, but he moved like he felt older.  
“I’m here to see someone called Jim?” he said.  
“I’ll show you where his office is,” I offered, walking towards Marcy’s desk. “Can I touch you?” He turned his head in my direction. His gray eyes focused on something in my vicinity, but not my face.  
“You don’t have to. I can see auras. I can follow.”  
That’s what he was focusing on. I got closer so he could see my aura better. “It’s this way.”  
“You’re the reader Freeman told me about,” he said, following me back toward Jim’s office.   
“Jonathan Bane. Call me Jon.”   
“Archer Lewis. Psychometrist.”   
That explained the white cotton gloves he wore and why he didn’t seem to want anyone touching him. I could see that he was very, very talented, but his shields were ragged and almost as bad as mine used to be. The man’s lines were like a big, neon purple sign that said “trauma,” and up close I could see an awful, throbbing hollow where an anchor bond used to be. I hissed in sympathy and a little bit of horror.  
He cocked his head to the side. “You really can see everything, can’t you?”  
“Yeah,” I admitted.  
He didn’t say anything else, and I didn’t pry. I was amazed that he was up and walking around with that sheer amount of pain.  
I knocked on Jim’s door, then opened it up. “Hey, Jim. Freeman’s friend is here.”  
“Great. Send him on in.”  
I moved out of the doorway so Archer Lewis’s dog could lead him inside, then shut the door behind him.  
I felt Donovan’s warm hand on my back. “You ok, babe?”  
“I changed my mind about lunch. Call your mom and see if she has any soup.”  
“What’s wrong? You look shook.”  
I hugged him. “I’m ok. It’s just…I think his anchor died.”  
“Fuck.” Donovan pulled out his cell phone.

Garrett:  
I walked back into Psy after an excellent lunch at a barbeque joint. “Hey, Marcy. Did I miss anything important?”  
“Jim hired another psychic.”  
“Wait, what?”  
“I know, right?” said Marcy. “He’s wanted to for a while. The opportunity presented itself. I just printed out the new hire paperwork. In fact…” She handed me a disturbingly thick stack of paper. “Would you mind taking it to him, maybe giving him a hand with it? We gave him the desk next to yours for now.”  
“Well played, Marcy,” I said. “Sure, no problem.”  
I couldn’t have missed the new psychic if I tried. He was setting up a contraption on the desk that looked part magnifying glass and part ring light. His head turned toward me as I approached, eyes not quite focusing. I spotted a rottweiler wearing a guide dog harness under the desk, and I understood the magnifier.   
“Hi. I’m Garrett,” I said. “Marcy sent me over with The Paperwork.”  
“Archer Lewis,” he said. “This is Steve.” He gestured at the rottweiler. He wore gloves, even inside.  
“Do you want a hand with this paperwork or anything?” I asked.  
“If you could read out some of the text-dense parts, that would be great.”  
“Sure,” I said. There wasn’t anything on my schedule except boring stuff for the rest of the day anyway. I pulled over the chair from my desk. He fished two pens out of the black messenger bag draped over the back of his chair and handed me one. I picked up the sheaf of new hire paperwork.  
“Ok, so, this first sheet looks like it’s for liability insurance,” I said. “Oof. This print is tiny…”  
We waded through the paperwork. He didn’t crack a single smile, even though I cracked several jokes. I studied him. His black suit said federal agent, but his hair, long, wavy, and dark, did not. I spotted a sizeable scar, paler than his pale skin, on his left temple, and he moved with the memory of a severe injury to his torso.  
“Can I ask a question?” I said.  
He tensed up. Steve lifted his head off his paws and gave a low “wuff.”   
“Sure,” said Archer.  
“How does the blind psychic thing work?”  
“Visually impaired,” he corrected. “It’s my physical sight I’m losing, not my psychic sight. That’s getting stronger.”  
“Good to know. Thanks,” I said. He said nothing.  
We slogged through more paperwork. I had his psychic license number memorized by this point, and I learned that he’d been in the FBI until a few months ago.  
He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. “I need a break,” he announced.  
“Did they show you where the break room is?”   
“They did, but refresh my memory.”  
“Sure. Wait. You don’t break electronics, do you?”  
“No. I drain batteries, though.”  
“That’s fine. It’s just that if anything happens to the coffee maker, Marcy will kill us all.”  
He smiled faintly. “Understandable.”  
Ah-hah! He did have a sense of humor. I showed him the break room and the extremely important locations of the coffee maker and the fridge. There was even a half a pot of coffee left.  
“Sweet. Want coffee?” I asked.  
“Yes,” he said in a tone of voice that suggested that “yes” was the answer to that question at all times.  
“How do you take it?”  
“With milk or creamer if you have any. Black if you don’t.”  
“The important part’s the coffee, am I right?” I said.  
“You are right indeed. Where are the mugs?”  
“If you’re facing the coffee maker, which you are, they’re in the cabinet at 12 o’clock,” I directed.  
He felt for the handle and opened the correct cabinet. He took his right glove off and brushed his fingers along the mugs, selecting a mug that nobody ever used and my favorite mug.  
“Did you just psychic that shit?” I asked.  
“Yup,” he replied, putting his glove back on.  
“That’s impressive,” I told him.  
He shrugged. I poured us both some coffee and showed him the spot in the fridge where the creamer belonged.  
“Thanks,” he said. We sat at the little round table in the break room.  
“So… what all can you see?” I asked after a little while. “I want to know so I can figure out how to watch your back. We’ll probably be working together.”  
He nodded. Good. I hadn’t offended him or anything. “Clearly? Auras and visions from whatever or whoever I’m touching. Other than that, I have no peripheral vision anymore and my acuity is a joke. And my color vision is terrible.”  
“No playing Uno. Got it.” I mimed taking notes before realizing he probably couldn’t see that.  
“We can do Go Fish instead,” he deadpanned. It was then that I knew I would end up liking this guy a lot.  
“I’ve got a deck of cards in my desk,” I said.  
Jim came into the break room. “Oh, good. Here you are. Listen, Archer, have you finished the police consultant paperwork?”  
Archer turned his head toward me. “Did we?”  
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure that was the second form. Right after the liability thing.”  
“Great. I wasn’t going to send you out in the field any time this week…” said Jim, sounding regretful.  
“Buuuut?” I said.  
“I was updating the police department, and Captain Livingston said that there’s a case you might be able to help with.”  
“If it can’t wait until tomorrow, it’s probably human remains,” said Archer.  
“That’s exactly what it is. Partial remains, possibly of a child.”  
“When you say partial remains…” I said. “What exactly do you mean?”  
“A skeletonized leg. And a pink sneaker which may or may not be related.”  
“Right. You need me on this, then,” said Archer.  
“Garrett, you go with him, make introductions. Detective Borrowman is in charge at the scene. I’ll text you with directions to where you’re going. It’s a ravine in a field.”  
“Oh, fun,” I said. I looked sidelong at Archer. “Are you gonna be ok in a ravine?”  
“Yes.”  
I grabbed a camcorder and some further details, he grabbed his bag, and we were good to go. We put Steve in the back of my car, put the address into my phone, and started off.  
“Ok, so what do you need from me out there?” I asked. “Anything special?”  
“Steve takes care of a lot of it.” From the back seat, Steve shook his head so his collar rattled. “I can get disoriented in time after a reading, so tell me the date and time when I come out of it.”  
“Can do. Does Steve need anything special?”  
“Not really. There’s treats in my bag. Water if we’re out there for a while.”  
I plugged my phone into the car charger. The battery was lower than I thought.  
“Also, don’t touch me if you want to keep your secrets. I can read people’s pasts as well as objects’ pasts,” said Archer out of the blue.  
I whistled. “Even through clothing?”  
“Sometimes. My shields are patchy now.”  
He didn’t elaborate on why that might be.  
“So, should I warn other people about the touching thing?” I asked after a little bit of space.  
“Yes. People really like to touch disabled folx without their consent, and they don’t enjoy being called on it.”  
“I hadn’t thought about that.”  
He arched an eyebrow. “Able-bodied people don’t. I don’t like being touched. It’s jarring.”  
“And it could be dangerous, depending on where you are.”  
“Exactly.”  
I nodded. “I’ll give them the psychic reason. People accept that psychics are weird.”  
“We’re all very, very weird,” he said.  
The road turned to gravel. I spotted several police cars and a perimeter of crime scene tape. “I think we’re there,” I said. I parked the car so that we weren’t blocking in any police. I saw a couple of K-9 officers with what I assumed were cadaver dogs, but I didn’t see Detective Borrowman anywhere.  
We got out of the car. Archer took something white out of his messenger bag. Before I could ask what it was, he flicked his wrist and it unfolded into a white cane with a white ball at the tip.   
I gave Detective Borrowman a call to find out where he needed us.

Arch:  
Gravel crunched under my feet. I smelt a good frost coming. I felt a good breeze. It covered up a lot of the sounds that told me where things might be.  
I was buckling Steve into his harness when I felt him alert to someone coming up to me from the side. I turned my head to find a man’s aura, simmering with resentment, so close I could almost see the man as more than a vague blur, which is much closer than I like anybody. Especially since Kyle died. I only let family this close by choice.  
“Back up, please,” I said. He did not.  
“Who are you?” he demanded in that tone that suggests someone is about to exert what little power they have to make your day shitty.  
“Psy Investigative,” said Garrett, coming around the car.  
“Let me see your ID, then.”  
Garrett had both his ID and mine. I let him take care of that while I finished getting Steve harnessed up. He licked my face, which is Steve for “I love you.” I stood up, and Steve maneuvered the handle of his harness right into my hand like the good boy he is. With my cane in the other hand, we were ready to go.  
“Well, all right,” said the policeman, “But you can’t take the dog.”  
“Excuse me?” said Garrett.  
“This is a crime scene. No dogs.”  
“Cadaver dogs have been in and out all day,” Garrett pointed out.  
“That’s different,” insisted the officer. His aura was full of frustrated ambition, feelings of persecution, and even a splotch or two of actual hate. I recognized him as the sort of person who took out his anger on everyone around him.   
“Do you have a problem with guide dogs, visually impaired people, or psychics?” I asked mildly. “Because I’d have to report those first two to your superior.”  
Something touched a nerve. Anger flared hot red over his aura, and the black patches crackled and throbbed. Interesting. His aura said he was ready to throw a punch. Hell, I almost hoped he’d try it.  
I heard gravel crunching as someone else approached. I turned my head to see a tall woman with a really beautiful aura - lots of greens and silver. This officer had a dog with her.  
“Is one of these guys the psychic?” asked the new officer with the happy dog.   
“He is. He wants to bring his dog into the crime scene,” said the angry officer.  
“The rottweiler with the guide dog harness?” She sounded incredulous.  
“You can get those on the internet.”  
“Then what’s the cane for? Decoration? Jesus, Solomon. Let them through. With the dog.”  
“Whatever,” said the angry officer. “If it shits on evidence, that’s on you, Flores.”  
The angry officer stalked away. The officer with the beautiful aura made a disgusted noise. “Sorry about Solomon. He’s been an especial asshole since he was demoted.”  
I shrugged. I’ve dealt with worse.  
“That’s putting it mildly. I thought he was going to throw a punch there for a second,” said Garrett.  
“He wanted to,” I said.  
“That fucker,” said the officer. “Sorry.”  
“You’re cool as ice, though, man,” said Garrett.  
If I’d been with Kyle, I would’ve said “Ice ice, baby.” Instead, I said, “I used to disarm bombs.”  
“How does a psychic disarm bombs?” asked the officer. “I am really curious. Sorry if that’s intrusive.”  
“Nah. If I can see how something is put together, I can take it apart. That, and extensive training.”  
“So that’s what you did with the FBI. Dayum,” said Garrett.  
“Part of it,” I said.  
“That is so cool,” said the officer. Then she remembered what we were all doing in the middle of a field. “Anyway, Detective Borrowman’s down this way. It’s mostly dirt and grass, but there are some loose rocks and gopher holes.”   
“Thanks for the heads up,” I said.   
“I’m Estrella Flores, by the way.”  
“Archer Lewis,” I said. “And your friend?”  
“Marigold. She’s a cadaver dog.” You can tell a lot about a person by reading their animals’ auras. Marigold loved working with Officer Flores. Officer Flores, for her part, lit up when she talked about her canine partner.  
Marigold and Officer Flores led the way. I was a little slow once the ground tilted downwards, but between Steve and my cane I managed all right.  
“You’re not the psychic Borrowman usually works with,” she observed.  
“He usually works with Jon,” Garrett told me.  
“Ah. He reads auras. I read objects,” I told the officer.  
“Cool. That’s called psychometry, right?”   
“It is,” I confirmed.  
The ground leveled off. “The remains are ahead of you roughly twenty feet at about 3 o’clock,” Officer Flores told me.  
“You have a visually impaired friend or relative, don’t you?” I said.  
“I live with my abuela,” she said.  
I heard someone approaching from the direction of the remains. Male, aura tinged with concern, walking with authority.  
“Thanks for coming. I’m Detective Borrowman,” said the man.  
“Archer Lewis,” I said.  
“He doesn’t shake hands,” said Garrett. That meant the detective had extended his hand for a shake. “His talent is touch-based.”  
“Fair enough. What do you need for a reading?” asked the detective.  
“Just to touch what you need information on,” I said.

Estrella:  
The psychic crouched by the skeletal leg. His guide dog lay down by his side. He collapsed his cane and set it down. He took off his right glove.  
I’d never seen a real psychic do a reading before and I didn’t want to miss a thing. My cousin did Tarot cards and tea leaves, but she wasn’t exactly accurate and had barely registered on the psychic tests.  
His partner pulled out a video camera. “Ok, we’re recording,” he said.  
“I’m Archer Lewis, psychic license number 1072339,” said the psychic.   
He reached out and felt for the femur. He bowed his head, dark hair falling into his eyes.  
“Definitely foul play,” said the psychic in a voice that sounded somehow distant. “I see a power saw dismembering the body. Post mortem, but not long post mortem. Big hands, wearing leather work gloves. Somewhere in a workshop or garage. I see concrete and I smell motor oil and metal. Temperature is cold. The deceased is a girl. White, brown hair, looks fourteen at most. I can’t tell you where the rest of her is, but probably not close.”  
He lifted his hand and shook his head. His guide dog leaned against his thigh, and the psychic patted him. “That’s all I can get from this. What day is it?”  
“Wednesday, February 6, 3:36pm,” said Garrett.  
“Thanks. Was there more evidence you needed read?” the psychic asked Borrowman.  
“There was that shoe Marigold found,” I said. “I don’t think they’ve bagged it yet.”  
“It’s down this way,” said Detective Borrowman. “Let me give you a hand up.”  
“No, thanks,” said the psychic. “I’m ok.” He grabbed his cane and stood. “What direction?”  
“Behind you about forty feet. 7 o’clock or so,” I told him. “There’s a shrub in the way, but it’s right on the other side of it.”  
And that’s where he went, unerringly.  
“You give really good directions,” said the psychic’s human partner. “How do you do that?”  
“Practice. My abuela lost her sight when I was twelve,” I told him. “I’ve been helping her ever since.”  
The pink sneaker lay almost under the bush where Marigold and I left it beside a yellow evidence flag.   
“It’s directly on your right now,” I told the psychic.  
He crouched beside it. His human partner started the camera recording again, and the psychic repeated his name and license number. He touched the shoe just like the end of the femur. “This belongs to a different girl who is also dead,” he reported. “Tan skin, between fifteen and eighteen I think, black hair. She jogs. She’s wearing a jacket. Autumn leaves. Someone grabs her from behind. Big hands. May be the same guy.”  
He went quiet for a little bit, then rocked back on his heels in shock. “My god. I’ve seen this unsub before. Let me… Yes. It’s definitely him.” He ended the reading and looked up in the detective’s direction. “This is the guy from Memphis that Hunter couldn’t find. You have a serial killer in your city.”  
“Could you describe him to a sketch artist?” the detective asked.  
“I already have. I’ll call some people at the FBI and get that to you.”  
“I’ll need the details on that Memphis case, too.”  
“Cases. Plural. There were a pair of them two years ago, maybe more since. I don’t know.”

Garrett:  
Archer was quiet in the car.  
“Some first day, huh?” I said in an effort to draw him out. Nothing. “You ok?”  
He took a deep breath and let it out. “Yes.”  
I wasn’t convinced. “Listen. I could take you home instead of back to the office. We won’t get there before at least five-thirty anyway. We can tackle the rest of that paperwork tomorrow.”  
“Fair enough,” he said and gave me an address. I entered it into the GPS while he called Jim to update him. It was only a few blocks away from my place. After he ended the call with Jim, he kept his phone out. “Call Rosemary,” he told it.  
I tried not to eavesdrop. I really did. But he was sitting right next to me, so…  
“Hey. Remember that guy we couldn’t catch in Memphis? He’s in Nashville now. Yes. The interview went fine… No. Tell Mom I’m not coming back to Houston for a while… ANYWAY, the Nashville PD need the sketch of that guy from Memphis and the case details. Detective Borrowman is the lead… Yes. Oh, and tell Hunter “I told you so” from me… Love you, too.”  
Archer turned to me. “Hunter’s my twin. He was convinced this guy was dead because he couldn’t find him.”  
“Your twin’s also a psychic?”  
“Yep.”  
“Your parents must have had a hell of a time hiding Christmas presents from you guys,” I said.  
“Yeah, they haven’t bothered since we were nine.”

Estrella:  
Over the next week, the psychic Archer Lewis and his human partner Garrett Wilson were in the station a lot. Captain Livingston had him going through evidence from ice cold cases to try and find new leads on them.  
Since they needed a police witness to help document the readings, I volunteered. It was so cool to watch him work. He seemed especially good at describing succinctly what he saw.  
Plus, I really liked his guide dog Steve. Steve, like most dogs, was open and happy where his human was mysterious and reserved. And cute. He was definitely cute. Both the rottweiler and the psychic. The psychic got this intense look in his gray eyes when he concentrated (like, Richard Armitage levels of intense), and there is nothing more adorable than eyebrow spots on a dog in my opinion.  
I walked into the conference room with a trio of coffees. I’d had their coffee orders memorized since day two. “You guys ready for another one?” I asked.  
“How are you doing?” Garrett Wilson asked Archer.  
“I will tell you after this cup of coffee,” replied the psychic, accepting the cup from me. His fingers brushed mine, and I realized he was not wearing his glove. He winced, only a micro-expression, but I saw it. And then I remembered that he could read people, too.  
“Sorry, my bad,” I said. Had he seen something from just that brief touch? He must have.  
“No, I should be more careful. Sorry. Thanks for getting the coffee.” He found the hole in the lid and took a long slurp of coffee. He let out a satisfied sigh. FBI coffee must be terrible if somebody can sigh like that after drinking police station joe. “Ok, let’s get back on the horse.”  
“I’ll just change the battery-“ Garrett began.  
My cell phone and Garrett’s cell phone rang simultaneously.  
“That’s probably bad,” said Archer. He slurped up more coffee.  
He was right.   
My phone call was from Detective Borrowman. They’d found arms, and they wanted Marigold to search the scene for more corpse bits. Garrett’s phone call was from his boss Jim, telling him essentially the same thing.  
“Yay, field trip,” said Archer flatly. “Garrett, is that the last battery for the camera?”  
“Yeah, it is.”  
“Estrella, would you mind if I rode with you, then?” Archer asked. “I don’t want to drain the last battery. We need that.”  
I blinked. “Sure. Marigold really likes Steve, so she won’t mind at all. I just need to go get her.”  
One quick detour to the kennels later, Archer and I loaded the dogs into the back of my squad car. Their tail and tail nubbin wagged in furry blurs.   
Us humans sat in the front, and I turned the key in the ignition. “The Room Where It Happens” came blaring out of my speakers.  
“Oh, shit! Sorry!” I fumbled for my iPod.  
“Don’t worry. This is a great musical.” I glanced at him, and he was wearing a small, wry smile. “We used to sing along.”  
“The FBI does Hamilton singalongs?” I asked.  
“Kyle and I did…” The smile was gone. There was something there, something painful. He looked haunted by it.  
“You sure you don’t want me to change it?”   
“No, this is… This is good.”  
I let it play and punched the location of the crime scene into my GPS. I groaned. “And of course it’s at least an hour away. Fun times.”  
“Well, at least we have Lin Manuel Miranda,” said Archer as I started to drive.  
It didn’t take us an hour to get there. It took us an hour and a half. And somehow we beat Garrett by a good ten minutes.  
We pulled over along a semi-rural road with drainage ditches on either side and several police cars. I spotted a cluster of crime scene techs in one of the ditches. Detective Borrowman came over to brief us on the situation after Garrett and the camera arrived. A guy training for a marathon had found the arms after he’d tripped into the ditch. It’s always a jogger or somebody walking their dog. Or kids. I hate when it’s kids.  
Marigold tugged at the leash and pulled me right over to the crime scene techs and the arms. She alerted. “Good girl,” I told her, and rewarded her. This scene was grislier than the last one. The arms had a lot of flesh attached. You could almost tell the original color of the skin.  
“There’s still flesh,” Garrett told Archer. “You can’t read through latex gloves, can you?”  
“Not if I want as much information as I can get.” He pulled a good sized bottle of hand sanitizer out of his messenger bag. “Someone hold this. I’m going to need it.”  
“Need a hand getting into the ditch, there?” asked Detective Borrowman. “It’s pretty steep and muddy.”  
“Thanks for the warning. I should be ok.”  
He slipped a little, but made it into the muddy ditch in one piece. Steve guided him to the arms. Garrett started the camera recording. Archer started the reading, touching one arm, then the other with a fingertip.  
“Looks like a teenage girl. Tan, blonde hair. Dismembered post mortem with a power saw… This is odd. I hear cicadas and I smell cut grass. It’s hot. She’s walking home from softball practice.” In a detached voice, he went on to describe a similar abduction and a violent, horrifying murder. The crime scene techs looked a little green. “That’s it. That’s all I can get.” He shivered. “Is it… February?”  
“February 13,” I told him. “Wednesday.”  
Garrett handed him the hand sanitizer, which he used liberally.  
“I think you might be looking for someone with a freezer full of body parts or something. These sure haven’t been out here since last summer, and I definitely saw an abduction in the summertime.”  
“He’s either holding the bodies or he’s holding the girls,” said Detective Borrowman.   
“Either way is bad,” said Garrett.   
“Ok, Marigold, find the body!” I told my dog, really hoping that she could find something that would crack the case.  
Several very chilly hours later, we hadn’t found a dang thing. The psychic, his good dog, and his human partner had gotten out of the chill and gone home ages before. It was long after dark when I led Marigold into her kennel.  
“Don’t worry, girl. We’ll get the bad guys next time,” I assured her.

Garrett:  
My attempt at French toast had gone disastrously wrong, but fortunately there was always Waffle House.  
“Next Valentine’s Day, I’m going to try surprising you with breakfast in bed,” Michael said.  
“With or without the smoke detector?” I asked.  
Michael laughed. “Definitely without. I can cook.”  
“I can, too, I promise,” I said.  
He snorted. “Mac and cheese barely counts, but you are good at mac and cheese. I’ll give you that.”  
“Next time I’ll make you mac and cheese for breakfast.”  
“You are banned from my kitchen, sir. Banned, I tell you.”  
“Fair enough.” We devoted our attention to our waffles, which arrived shortly thereafter with a refill for our bottomless coffee.  
“What do you want to bet that Donovan and Jon won’t make it to the office before noon?” I asked.  
“Oh, I am not taking that bet. Because they won’t. They may have just taken the day off. I don’t know.”  
“Yeah, why didn’t we think of doing that?”  
“Because someone has to actually do work, I guess. Bleh.” He stuck out his tongue. I put half a strawberry in his mouth.  
“I mean… Jim has people. He doesn’t need us. For just one day. You know.”  
“That new guy needs you, though, right?”  
“Only because I can drive. Arch is a stone cold badass.”  
“Arch? It’s Arch now?”  
“He says that’s what his friends call him.”  
“He makes friends? He seems awfully prickly.”  
“He just plays things close to his chest is all.” Why did I feel like I was defending myself here? Were we… about to have a fight? About a work colleague? On Valentine’s Day?  
“I just don’t get why you like him so much. He seems like he has no sense of humor at all. I’ve never even seen him smile.”  
“He does. It’s subtle. He’s a deadpan snarker for sure.”  
“If you say so.” Michael ate a few more bites of waffle. “I do really like his dog, though.”  
“Oh, my God, Steve is such a good boy. The best boy.” I finished my waffle and the waitress came by with more coffee. “Hey, Michael?” I said. “What if I got a dog?”  
“You know what? You should,” he said. “I could see you with a dog. Your house has a good yard for one.”  
“Maybe a lab. Or a golden retriever.”  
“You ARE a golden retriever, baby,” said Michael with that sexy smile of his.  
“Maybe just a mutt. Definitely a rescue dog.”  
“Rescue pets are the best pets,” Michael agreed.  
That Saturday, we went to the animal shelter. I was delighted that Michael would do this with me. If I had my way, he’d be hanging out with this dog a lot and for a long time.   
The corridor lined with dog kennels echoed with barking. I saw the sweetest of puppers in all shapes and sizes. On every kennel there was a cheerful nametag with the name of the dog inside and a couple of adjectives. Playful. Friendly. Shy. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. I wanted to take them all home, and most of them looked like they wanted to come home with me.  
We turned a corner, and there was Archer Lewis in one of the doggie cells, petting a happy black and white pitbull. I did a double take. I almost didn’t recognize him in jeans.  
“Archer?” Michael said. “What are you doing here?”  
“Where’s Steve?” I asked.  
There was a woman in the kennel as well, with short gray hair and glasses, dressed in jeans and flannel. She answered, and I realized Arch was in the middle of a reading. A reading of the dog? “Oh, Steve’s at home. I’m his guide dog today. Howdy.”  
“I’m Garrett Wilson,” I said. “This is my boyfriend, Michael Sho.”  
“You work with my nephew. He’s mentioned you. As much as he mentions anything, anyway.”  
“Yes ma’am,” I said. “We do.”  
“Jessica Teak-Lewis. Nice to meet you,” she said.  
“Aw, you poor baby,” Archer said to the dog. She licked his face and wagged her entire body. “This sweetheart’s asshole people abandoned her, Aunt Jess.”  
“Could you tell why?”  
“I think she chewed on something? It was hard to tell.”  
“A dog chewed on something? That never happens,” I said. “No dog has ever ever done that extremely common behavior.”  
“I know, right?” said Arch’s aunt.  
“Hey, Garrett,” said Arch, recognizing my voice. “Looking for a dog?”  
“Actually, yeah.”  
“What kind? Big? Small? Good with cats?” asked Arch’s aunt.   
“Aunt Jess is a vet. She volunteers here on the weekends. She knows all the dogs pretty well,” Arch explained.  
“What about the one you were reading? What’s she like?” I asked.  
“Basically the sweetest sweetheart alive,” said Aunt Jess. “Malnourished, fleas, but nothing medically drastic. She’s about a year and a half old. We call her Lizzie.”  
“Seems like she was abused, poor baby,” said Arch. “She might have some behavioral issues stemming from that.”  
Lizzie was busy kissing Arch all over. Behavioral issues. Sure. So many.  
“She seems like she’s as friendly as you are, hon,” Michael said to me.  
“I knew there was something I liked about her. Hey, Lizzie! How are you girl?”  
She stopped licking every inch of Archer and leapt against the chain link, trying to lick me, gazing up at me with heterochromatic eyes and a wide pitbull smile.  
“Want to take her to the dog run and see if she’s The One?” Aunt Jess asked.  
I did, and it turns out she was.

Jon:  
Archer Lewis’s federal agent suit look hadn’t just been for the job interview. That’s what he wore every day. On Casual Fridays, the suit was dark gray. His lines remained largely the deep deep purple of profound grief, but sometimes I spotted a flicker of amusement, satisfaction, or even humor. He threw himself into cases, wading through all kinds of tedious evidence, using work as a distraction from trauma.  
After a couple of weeks, one of the leads Archer turned up in a cold case led to a suspect. Borrowman felt pretty sure the guy was guilty, so he called in yours truly for the interrogation. Since Archer was already at the station, he sat in.  
“How are you doing? Settling in ok?” I asked him.  
“Nashville’s nice. I think I’m gonna buy a house. Can’t stay with my aunts forever.” That was almost a monologue coming from Archer. He might be starting to open up. He’d been polite and considerate to everyone in the office, but I still had no idea what he did for fun. I didn’t know he’d been staying with his aunts.  
“The house across the street from my parents’ is for sale,” Donovan put in. “They’re good neighbors. I promise.”  
“What’s the yard like?”  
“I’m not sure. We’re going to their place for dinner. Want to come along and check it out?”  
“No, I wouldn’t want to impose…”  
“You wouldn’t,” I assured him. “They’d be delighted to meet you.”  
Detective Borrowman entered the interrogation room on the other side of the glass, and we turned all business. Donovan started the camera. Detective Borrowman exchanged pleasantries with the suspect, building up a rapport. He asked where the suspect had been on the date in question.  
“Man, that was ages ago. I don’t remember,” replied the suspect.  
“Lie,” Archer and I said at the same time.  
As the interrogation went on, it became clear that the suspect was super guilty. I picked up much more detail from the guy’s aura than Archer, but whatever he did notice was right in line with my reading.  
Once we all made it back to the office, Archer let me know that yes, he’d love to check out the house and have dinner.  
“Good,” said Donovan. “Because I already texted my mother. She might be calling the realtor.”  
“She doesn’t mess around, does she?” said Archer.  
“Nope.”  
Instead of making Archer take an Uber to the Havilis’ house, I offered to give him a ride. A little after five, we left the back door of the office.  
“I’m serious,” I was saying. “You’ve never had pork until you’ve had what Alani makes. I’ve got the recipe, and I’ve tried, but I can’t come close.”  
“No one can,” added Donovan.  
Archer touched the door handle of the door behind the driver’s seat, and froze.   
“Jon,” he said calmly, “There is a bomb under your car. Take Steve. My phone’s dead. Donovan, call.”  
Before I knew it, before my brain parsed the seriousness of the situation, the handle of his guide dog’s harness was in my hand and I was back by the door with Donovan, who was on the phone with 911. I looked around. Archer was not with us.  
He was under my car.  
“What are you doing?!” I cried. My first instinct was to rush back out there and attempt a rescue. Donovan’s arm around my shoulders held me in place.   
“Babe. Babe. He knows what he’s doing,” Donovan said. He sounded as upset as I felt, and his protective instincts flashed all over the place.  
An eternity later (actually about five minutes of breathless waiting), four different cars with sirens screamed into the parking lot. Bomb squad guys in this protective gear clomped over to my Humvee.  
“Hey, guys,” came Archer’s voice from underneath the car. “Disarmed this for y’all, but it’s still attached to the undercarriage here. Duct taped good and solid.” He wriggled out from under my humvee, suit a little grimy, and got to his feet.  
“Uh… Please go stand back over there with the civilians,” said one of the bomb squad guys.  
“If you’re pointing, I can’t see it,” Archer said. “Hand me my bag, would you?”  
The bomb squad guy handed him his messenger bag. “Are you…blind?”  
“Visually impaired.”  
“And you disarmed a bomb.” The bomb squad guy sounded incredulous.  
“Yes. It would’ve gone off already if I hadn’t.” He pulled a collapsible white cane out of his bag and extended it. “Which direction did you want me?”  
“To your right…”   
Archer walked towards us. Steve broke out of my grasp and ran to his master, whining. Archer fumbled for Steve’s harness. Steve guided him over to the rest of us. All of Psy stood out on the sidewalk with us now.  
“I’m glad you’re safe, but why did you do that?” Jim asked.  
“It’s easier to pull a reading off of something that hasn’t exploded yet,” Archer said. It was surreal how matter-of-fact he was. According to his aura, he wasn’t putting on a façade of calm: he really didn’t feel shaken or disturbed at all.  
“Let the bomb squad do that next time, ok?” said Jim, his mouth a flat, worried line.  
An officer came over to us, a curvy woman with dark skin. “You’re going to have to come down to the station with us,” she said. “The captain wants to handle this case personally.”  
“Sure,” said Archer.  
“You, too, Mr. Bane, sorry,” said the officer. Fields was her name, I think. Yes, Shawna Fields.  
“Can’t.” I gestured to my car, surrounded by the bomb squad. “That’s the only ride I can safely take, so I’m stuck here until they clear it.”  
“Oooh, that’s right. I forgot. Sorry. Guess we’ll just have to get your statement here, if that’s ok?” said Officer Fields.  
“Yeah,” I said.  
“Awesome.” She turned to Archer. “Please come with me.”  
A different officer came over to take our statements, and I don’t remember their name at all.

Arch:  
Captain Livingston met me in the conference room I’d been using to go through cold case evidence. She sat beside me, so I could almost see her. She set a voice recorder between us, recording this conversation. Her aura told me she felt concerned. Fair enough.   
I also felt some concern. I’d picked up some visions of the bomber while I was taking his sloppy handiwork apart. I’d heard his voice before, and recently, but I couldn’t place where or who.  
“Ok. Run me through what happened from your perspective.”  
“Jon and Donovan were going to take me to Donovan’s parents’ house for dinner. I touched the door handle, and I got a flash of a bomb under the car.”  
“Were you wearing gloves?” she asked.  
“Yes. They don’t stop everything all the time, especially when it’s something that could harm me.”  
“Sorry, I didn’t understand how that works.”  
I shrugged. “Every psychic’s different.”  
“So, why did you decide to disarm the bomb yourself?”  
“A few reasons.” I listed them off, counting on my fingers. “I got some good details on the bomb from that flash. I could tell it was pretty simple. I bet your unsub googled how to make it, because it was by-the-book and clumsy. Number two, it was on a timer and set to go off in about three minutes. I can pull information off something that hasn’t exploded more easily than the aftermath. I wanted to get as much as I could. To help you solve this fast. Bombers… they don’t like to stop at one.”  
“You’ve disarmed bombs before.”  
“Yes. It’s one of the things I did with the FBI.”  
“You’ve worked a lot of bombing cases?” she asked me.  
“Several. If you want details, I’ll pass along my old supervisors’ info.”  
“I’d like that. Thanks. I’ve got to ask, though… You just happened to have the right tools for disarming a bomb with you?”  
“Yeah. I always do. It’s probably not healthy to worry about finding bombs everywhere, but… I never said I was healthy.” I pulled my trusty wire cutters and screwdriver out of my bag. “You can confirm with my family and former coworkers that I always have these with me. I even brought them to my brother’s wedding.”  
“Ok. I’ll do that.” I heard her write something down on a pad of paper. “Did you happen to read any information about the bomber from the bomb as you were disarming it?”  
“I did. I heard him muttering to himself, but nothing distinct. I got the impression of anger and of masculinity. He sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place –“  
Someone tapped at the door.  
“Come in,” said Captain Livingston.  
The door opened. “I wanted to know if you needed anything, Captain,” said a man. It sounded like the angry officer who didn’t like Steve. It also sounded like the bomber. “Coffee? Water?”  
“Say again?” I said. “Didn’t catch that.”  
“Coffee,” said the officer, enunciating too much. “Do you want it.”  
Yep. That was him.  
“Yes. Creamer or milk, no sugar,” I said smoothly so he wouldn’t know I was on to him. I didn’t want him to poison my coffee. That’s happened before. Not to me, because they figured I’d catch it, but Kyle got really sick.  
“I’d like water,” said the captain. “Thanks, Solomon.”  
I waited until I head the door close and footsteps walk away from the conference room. “That’s him,” I said.  
“What?”  
“That officer. That was the voice I heard. The bomber.”  
“Solomon?”  
“As far as I can tell.”  
“Iiiiiinteresting,” she said. That suggested history with this Solomon guy that I wasn’t privy to. She wrote something down. “Would you be willing to do a recorded reading of the bomb tonight?”  
“Sure. Sooner is better than later. Psychic impressions fade.”  
“Great. Stick around. I might have you do that.”  
“I would really like that coffee though,” I said. “Not even kidding.”  
“You’ll get it.” She stood and gathered up the recorder and her paper. “Need anything else?”  
I pulled a phone charger out of my bag and attached my phone to it. “If you could plug this in for me real quick?”  
“Sure thing.” She did, and then left.   
Once my phone had a little juice in it, I fired up the latest episode of a podcast. Might as well. My Favorite Murder had been the bulk of my evening plans anyway.  
Someone knocked at the door and I paused the pod. “C’mon in,” I said.  
“Hey.” It was Estrella Flores. Under the table, Steve stood up. He liked her a lot. “Got your coffee.”  
“Thanks,” I said, reaching out. She put a big cup of coffee into my hand, careful not to touch me. She’d make a good partner. Her aura displayed worry, fear, anger. “What’s up?” I asked.  
“Are you ok? And also, are you crazy?”   
“I’m fine. Why?”  
“Fields told me what you did. Normal people run AWAY from bombs.”  
Ah. Some of that worry was for me. I felt…touched. Almost happy.  
“I used to disarm bombs for a living,” I said to try and reassure her. “I’m fine.”  
“You get how that was crazy reckless, though, right?” She sat beside me where her captain had just been.  
“Calculated risk. It wasn’t a complicated bomb, and it’d be easier to track the guy if I got it before it blew. Plus, Jon’s car is really unique and would be hard to replace.”  
“You could’ve been literally killed. For a car.”  
“No, I –“ And then I realized she was right. “Ok, yes. Yes. It was a risk I didn’t need to take. You’re like my therapist. Won’t let me get away with anything.”  
“Look. I know we’re just colleagues, maybe work friends, but I’m worried about you.”  
“Sorry. I’m…” I looked down. Steve pressed against my leg. I patted him. “My…” I couldn’t say it. Not the whole truth. It kept getting stuck in my throat. It kept hurting like it hurt the instant I realized what happened. I kept wishing I’d never come out of the coma, never realized Kyle was gone. “I lost… someone.”  
“How awful,” she said softly. “You don’t have to say a thing if you don’t want to, but I’m here if you want to talk about it, ok? I can tell you felt really close to them.” She sounded like she wanted to hug me, but she didn’t.  
“He was like my brother. Mom basically adopted him when his own parents kicked him out.” Goddammit, my therapist was right. It did feel good to tell someone a little of what happened, what my anchor had been to me.  
“Damn, his parents sound like shitholes,” she said.  
“They didn’t even go to his funeral.”  
“Wow.”  
We sat in silence for a while.

Estrella:  
Archer seemed lost in sad thoughts, drinking his coffee. I really, really wanted to touch him, to comfort him, but there were some things I didn’t exactly want him reading about me. Not because my secrets are bad secrets, but because it might change the way he thought about me. For all I knew, he was a raging transphobe. He didn’t seem like one, but you never know.  
“So…you were listening to something when I came in. Audiobook?” I said at last. Awkward change of subject, but I wanted to try and pull him out of his shell a little.  
“Podcast.”  
“Cool. What about.”  
“You’ll laugh.”  
“I promise not to.”  
“True Crime.”  
I knew those voices sounded familiar. “Archer Lewis, are you a murderino?”  
“You too, huh?”   
“They’re coming to Nashville next Thursday. I have two tickets,” I said on impulse.  
“I bet they sold out months ago.”  
“They did.” Silence. “Arch, I’m inviting you with the other ticket.”  
He blinked. “Why me?”  
“Because you’ll enjoy it and not a lot of other people I know would. And because something came up and my sister can’t go.”  
“Then I will gladly be your substitute sister. We’d better call the venue about Steve…”  
Someone knocked on the conference room door.   
“Come on in,” said Archer.  
The man who came into the room looked like what might happen if The Rock and Jason Momoa had a baby and fed it whole cows and protein shakes. I knew he was Jon Bane’s anchor, and, sadly, taken.  
“Hey, Donovan. I don’t think I’m going to make it to dinner,” said Archer.  
“Dinner came to you.” Donovan Havili set down six sizeable Tupperware containers of food. I didn’t recognize the scents, but they smelled delicious.  
Donovan hugged Archer.   
Archer went stiff, then relaxed. He patted Donovan’s arm. “TMI, man. Please stop.”  
“Sorry.” Donovan disengaged. “Are you ok?”  
“You give great hugs, but it’s like a virtual reality porn channel featuring my coworkers. Please don’t do that again.”  
“Oh. Wow.” Donovan blushed. “I did not realize how sensitive your talent is.”  
“Some days are worse than others. Today, it’s turned up to 11.”  
“I’m glad it is,” said Donovan.  
“Me, too,” said Archer. After a beat or so, he added, “You should do it, you know. You should propose.”  
Donovan blew out a breath and shook his head. “Psychics.”  
“This is, uh, this is a lot of food,” I said. “Arch, it’s at your ten, eleven, and twelve o’clock. Fork at one.”   
“That’s my mom for you,” said Donovan. “And you have to come to her house as soon as you can for more, or you’re going to wake up to her cooking thank you pancakes in your kitchen one morning.”  
“As long as she makes enough for my aunts, too, I would welcome thank you pancakes.” Archer reached out and touched the Tupperware. “Oh, wow. That really is a LOT of food. There is no way I can eat all of this. Estrella, please help.”  
I swallowed my absurd amount of drool. “You don’t have to ask me twice,” I said. “I’ll go get a fork.”  
I was very, very glad I fetched the fork. The food gave Abuela’s tamales a run for their money.

Arch:  
I worked on reports in a conference room at Psy on my laptop. It was easier than working at my desk. I do a lot of voice to text in order to write things, and the software works better with less background noise.  
“Hey… um… Archer?” came a voice from the doorway. It was Michael Sho, the IT guy.  
“Do you need the conference room?” I asked. He seemed upset, and I hoped it wasn’t anything I’d done.  
“No… How’s the EMP case for your laptop working out?”  
“Good. I don’t drain the battery as quickly.”  
That wasn’t the question he really wanted to ask. He didn’t leave. He hesitated in the doorway, then he came in and shut the door.  
“Look. You know Garrett and I are dating, right?”   
“Yes.”  
“Thing is… He talks about you a lot… and he adopted the dog you recommended, and… Are you into him?”  
I blinked. It clicked. The turmoil in his aura made sense. Allos are weird. “Sho, are you singing me the song Jolene right now?”  
He made a croaking noise. “I guess… yeah.”  
“Look.” I rubbed my eyes. “I’m not going to take your man. I will never take your man. I like my romantic partners like I like my brussels sprouts. I do not like brussels sprouts.”  
“…oh. So you’re…”  
“Ace. Even if I weren’t, you’d have nothing to worry about. You guys are adorable together.”  
Relief washed over his aura. He laughed a weak chuckle. “Man, I feel stupid.”  
“No, you don’t. You feel relieved. That’s ok,” I told him.  
“Jon told me I should talk to you about it. Didn’t say why.”  
“Yeah, sexuality shows up in auras a lot of the time,” I said. “He probably saw it and knew you were worried about a non-issue.”  
Sho sat in a chair across from me. His knees basically gave out. “Sorry I, uh, sang Jolene at you.”  
“No worries. Garrett’s head over heels for you, you know. He talks about you almost as much as he talks about Lizzie,” I assured Sho.  
“She is such a good dog,” he said. He stood up. “Listen… there’s a room that we’ve been basically just using as storage. We could clean it out for you, give you an office to record reports in instead of having to use a conference room.”  
I smiled. I actually felt like smiling for once. “Thanks. I’d appreciate that.”  
“It’s really small and there’s no natural light,” he warned me.  
“Honestly? That’s better. Sunlight gives me headaches,” I told him.   
That was a main reason why I’d come up to Nashville to stay with my aunts Jess and Wanda instead of going out to San Diego to stay with my grandparents. It’s always fucking sunny there.   
I couldn’t have stayed in Austin where my brother and sister are, or gone to Houston to stay with my parents. All our houses are literally full of memories. Kyle’s wife wouldn’t talk to me. Worse, she wouldn’t let Kyle’s daughter Melissa, basically my niece, talk to me. Kyle had never visited my aunts in Nashville, so he hadn’t left any psychic impressions at their house for me to stumble upon.

Estrella:  
I wore a cute black dress with a Peter Pan collar and a pattern of tiny knives. It made me look much curvier than I am. I also had little knife earrings. Ideally, this outfit would be paired with ballet flats, but those are hard to find in my size. I went with red fishnet tights and combat boots instead.  
I knocked at the door of the address Arch had given me.  
The person who answered was a wide black woman in her fifties. Her body said “I will bake you cookies” and her aesthetic said “I will clobber you in a mosh pit at a punk concert and get a new piercing to celebrate.” She looked me up and down.  
“Arch! Your date’s here!” she shouted back into the house.  
“Not a date, Wanda!” I heard Archer’s voice drift out from inside.  
The woman laughed, deep and jolly. She extended a hand covered in truly beautiful tattoos for me to shake. “He’s fun to mess with. I’m Wanda. C’mon in.”  
She led me into a cozy living room, furnished in a style somewhere between a log cabin and a punk record store. There was a gray-haired white woman sitting on the couch reading a medical journal. The family resemblance between her and Archer was clear. Wanda planted a kiss on the top of her head.   
“Company, honey,” said Wanda.  
The gray-haired woman looked up at me. “Oh, hey. I’m Jess. Can we get you a drink? Lemonade? Coke?”  
“Coke would be great,” I said.  
“Diet or Regular? Or Sprite?” Wanda asked.  
“Regular.”   
Wanda bustled off to the kitchen.  
“You’re the cop with the cadaver dog, aren’t you?” said Jess.  
“Yes. Marigold.”  
“Archer says Steve loves her.”  
“She’s such a sweet goofball,” I said. “I’m going to adopt her when she retires, because she is a treasure.”  
Jess smiled. “German shepherd? How are her hips?”  
“They’re good so far,” I told her. “She’s very healthy for her age.”  
Jess nodded. “Good, good.”  
Wanda returned with a cold can of Coke for me. “You’ve asked her all about her dog and nothing about herself, haven’t you?” Wanda said to her partner.  
“Yes,” Jess admitted.  
“No worries,” I said. “Marigold is more interesting than I am.”  
Jess gestured towards me. “See?” Wanda kissed her on the head again.  
Arch and Steve came into the living room. Arch wore a black suit, as usual, but his shirt was black and his tie was patterned with tiny red SSDGMs and “blood” splatters. He had a My Favorite Murder pin on his lapel.  
“Cool tie,” I said.  
“Etsy is full of wonders,” he told me, deadpan as usual.  
“Didn’t you wear that suit to work today?” Wanda asked her nephew.  
“…maybe.”  
“Child, you need a new wardrobe. You don’t have to look like a G man anymore,” Wanda told him, shaking her head.  
“We’re not having this conversation again right now,” he said. “I like suits.”  
We all exchanged some more pleasantries, then Arch, Steve, and I left.  
“You do kinda look like an extra from Men In Black most of the time,” I ribbed when we got into my SUV.  
“If they’re all the same color, I can’t accidentally pair navy blue and black. Besides, I like black,” he said. I saw a faint half smile, which told me he felt amused.  
“You had a goth phase in high school, didn’t you?”  
“Phase?” he said. The smile got bigger, and I saw a spark of mischief.  
“Oooh,” I said. “Still waters.”  
I drove us towards the venue.  
“Um. Serious for a sec,” I said. “Since we might accidentally touch and you’ll find out anyway. I’m trans.” I didn’t dare look at him.  
“Thanks for trusting me with that,” he said. No judgement, just kindness. Not exactly what I expected from a guy whose accent was thick with Texas.  
“That’s it? Really?” I said. I glanced over at him. “It doesn’t bother you or anything?”  
“Anybody it bothers is an asshole,” he said with absolute sincerity and conviction.  
A smile spread over my face. “You’re awesome. You know that?”  
He shrugged. “My anchor was trans. Kyle.”  
Was. No wonder Arch seemed so serious. This was that friend he’d lost. My God.  
“What happened?” I asked gently. “Do you want to talk about it?”  
“You know the Miami Bomber case?” he asked softly.  
“Yeah. Serial bomber, didn’t stay in Miami. FBI caught him last ye- oh. That was you, wasn’t it?”  
“Yeah.”  
“It went bad.” I remembered reading about several casualties in the take down.  
“Yes.” I could barely hear him.   
We drove silently for a while.   
“So…” I broached a new subject, hopefully a less painful one. “Have you ever worked on a case Karen and Georgia have covered?”  
“Yes,” he said.   
“Details, please.”  
“There’s more than one cold case I solved that I heard about first on MFM,” he said. He told me about them the rest of the way to the venue. Or rather, he told me what he could without interfering with ongoing cases.  
“If you don’t email them about that, then I will,” I said.  
“Why?”  
“Because you KNOW they want to hear about stuff like that!” I said as we pulled into the parking garage.  
“You want sweet parking?” he asked. He pulled a handicapped placard out of his bag.  
“Does that make it easier for you?” I asked.  
“It does.”  
“Then absolutely.”  
We made our way into the venue, slowly maneuvering around the crowd. I managed to keep just about everyone from brushing against Archer.  
“Do you want popcorn?” I asked him.  
“Sure,” Arch said. “Only a bit, though. Is there a small size?”  
“We could share,” I suggested. “Are you ok with that?”  
“Are you?” he asked.  
“Yes. I don’t have any super dark secrets or anything. If our hands touch it’s ok.” I guessed that he probably didn’t want salt and “butter” on his gloves.  
“Then let’s share.”  
So we did.   
Getting to our seats was a small adventure. I headed off two different ushers who tried to grab Arch’s arm to guide him.  
“I’ve got this,” I told them. “Thanks.”  
When we got to our seats in the balcony (Arch took the aisle so Steve would have a place to sit), Archer turned to me. “You watch out for me. You’d be a good partner.”  
I blinked. Work with a psychic? Full time?  
“What about Garrett?”  
“He’s all right.”   
The lights went down and the show started, and it was insane and amazing. We laughed until we gasped for breath. Worth every penny.

Arch:  
My aunts and I were doing at-home mani pedis on Saturday when my phone rang. Wanda, whose nails were already dry, answered it for me and held it to my ear.  
“Hello?” I said.  
“It’s Jim. Are you anywhere near Nashville right now?”  
“Let me guess. More remains.”  
“Right in one. Partial again. Borrowman thinks it’s related to the other partial remains you’ve seen.”  
“And they need to know if it’s part of one of the victims we already have or a new one.”  
“Exactly. Their forensic psychic and ME is on scene, but she’s having trouble getting a read on the victim.”  
“I’m available as soon as my nail polish dries, but Garrett’s camping this weekend,” I reminded Jim.  
“Shit. And Tyson’s in New York visiting his grandma. I could try to see if Detective Borrowman can get you there…”  
“There’s a police officer I’ve been working with… Estrella Flores. Maybe she could take over for Garrett? She knows what Steve and I need and she’s been at the other crime scenes with the partials.”  
“I’ll make some calls. You dry your nail polish.” We hung up.  
“It’s just the top coat on your fingers to go,” Wanda told me. “Twenty minutes, tops.”  
I thought about what I was wearing: black dockers and an Ace pride t-shirt that looked like a metal band shirt. Good enough for a Saturday with a blazer over it. “Would you grab one of my suit jackets for me?” I asked Aunt Jess.  
“Already did it,” she said, holding up a black blur. “This is the one that was missing a button. I fixed it yesterday. It was already downstairs.”  
“Steve,” I said, “Socks.” My dog padded up the stairs. A moment later, he returned with socks in his mouth, which he dropped in my lap. “Good boy.”  
A half hour later, Estrella was at the door. I grabbed my bag and gloves and we were off.  
“You do own things that aren’t suits!” she said. “I got you coffee on the way here. It’s in the back cupholder.”  
I took a slurp. Perfect. “I’m pretty sure you’re an angel,” I told her.  
She laughed. “I know I am. I see you’re bringing your goth look back, huh?”  
I held my left hand close in front of my face so I could see my new black nails. They looked really good.  
“It never left me in my heart,” I said.   
This crime scene wasn’t as far out. It was a vacant lot in a suburb. Not good. Possibly an escalation. Or he’d just watched a documentary about the Black Dahlia.   
“Hoo boy,” said Estrella. “The cell phone cameras are out in force today.”  
“Yay,” I said.   
Borrowman met us at the yellow tape. “Glad you could come out today,” he said to me, moving the tape out of my way.  
He made introductions to the important blurs on the scene, and I don’t remember what any of their names were, because someone grabbed me into a hug.  
I was somewhere else. I was someONE else. Images flooded my mind. Her mind? Birthdays. A little blonde boy short-circuiting a fridge. Blurting out embarrassing facts he couldn’t possibly know. Shouting matches. A suitcase. Guilt. A ribbon of guilt and regret spooling through every scene.  
The images stopped. I staggered. I felt a warm weight pressed against my thigh. I felt a steady hand on my arm and saw dogs playing. Tamales. Strong. Earthy. I smelled marigolds.   
Estrella. This was Estrella. Which meant that I was Archer Lewis. The dog by my side was Steve.   
“…should know better!” somebody was saying. Male. Borrowman. Detective Borrowman. Nashville. Crime scene.  
“…ok? Arch, tell me if you’re ok!” Estrella. Definitely Estrella.  
“I’m ok,” I mumbled to her. “I’m here. I’m ok. What’s today?”  
“Saturday March 24 3:23pm,” she told me. “Oh, shit, I’m touching you. I am so sorry!” She jerked her hand away.  
“It’s ok,” I told her. It surprised me. “You’re… solid. Easy to hang on to. Has anybody ever told you you’d be a good anchor?”   
Dammit. I was babbling and I bet someone had all of this on camera. Hope my hair didn’t look awful. I tried to focus.   
“I’m sorry. I’m Lauren,” said a blur that was reddish-orangish on top.  
“He doesn’t shake hands,” Estrella said coldly. “For obvious reasons.”  
“I just… I wanted to say thank you,” said Lauren. “Jon’s my-“  
“Son. I know,” I finished for her.   
“I did not realize your talent was so very touch-based,” she said. “I’m really sorry.”  
“Ask next time so I can maybe shield,” I said sharply. “Anyway, where are the remains?”  
“This way,” she said. She sounded relieved to get to work. “I’ve been trying to get answers here, but it’s rough for me with no head.”  
“Five feet, 1 o’clock,” Estrella told me.  
I followed her directions and knelt. The remains were the upper half of a torso. I took off my glove.  
“We’re recording,” said Estrella.  
I announced my name and license number and started the reading. I recognized this girl. “This is the girl the arms belong to,” I said aloud. “Cement floor. A garage or a large shed. She’s smart, trying to humanize herself, talking to him. Clara. Her name is Clara. She’s telling him about her new kitten. Definitely the guy I saw in Memphis. He’s… He has a car battery.”  
Sometimes it’s hard to describe what I’m seeing in a reading. Sometimes it’s hard to see what I’m seeing. Because it’s so disturbing, not because my psychic sight is impaired. This torture and murder was about what you might expect from a killer who mutilates bodies. Nightmare-worthy.  
“She sees a license plate,” I said, glad to have one shred of good news from watching Clara’s last moments. “Y…8…2…Q… That’s it. She’s dead.”  
I sat back on my heels. Steve licked my face.   
“That’s a lot more information than I could get,” said Lauren. “You’re good.”  
I didn’t reply.  
“Can I give you a hand up?” Estrella asked me. “It’s Saturday March 24.”  
“Yes, please. Thanks,” I said. Her steadiness, the images of Marigold goofing around, they helped.

Estrella:  
Monday, I was late to work. Monday, the day the My Favorite Murder Minisode drops. I listen on my morning commute. Monday, I had to sit in the parking lot until I finished the episode.  
Because this was the last email Georgia read:  
“This last one is called “I Solved My Hometown Murder.” Hi fiercely private dogs and also humans and cats,” Georgia read. “I guess they’re a dog person.”  
“Dogs are pretty awesome,” Karen agreed.  
“Anyway. My brother and I are psychics. I used to live in Austin. Down the street from my house was a nail place that used to be a froyo shop.”  
“Oooooh, shit. Is this what I think it is?”  
“Yuuup! Because this is the next sentence. A froyo shop where 4 teenage girls were murdered in 1991. Y’all covered this in episode 70. Yes, the location of the Austin Yogurt Shop Murders is a Nail Salon. Let’s get our nails done there. You think they know about the murder?” said Georgia.  
“Yes, I’d like your deluxe pedicure with honey shea butter and all the things you know about the murders that happened here,” Karen joked.  
“I did not know this, or rather, I did not know which nail place it was (there are a few in the area) until my anchor, my sister, and I decided to try a new place for mani pedis and I touched the wall.  
“Let me explain. I’m the kind of psychic that reads the history of objects and people by touch. Unfortunately, we had to get our nails done somewhere else.”  
“Woah, I bet,” said Karen.  
“Have we ever had an email from a psychic before?” Georgia asked.  
“I have no idea.”  
“Send us your psychic stories,” said Georgia.  
“Stories from psychics, stories about psychics…”  
“The impressions from the murders were very vivid, and I felt that I could get a lot of information with further readings. I called the police department to offer assistance. They agreed, because my boss at the FBI put in a word. The case never should have gone cold.”  
“Hold up. He’s with the FBI?” Karen broke in. “He, right?”  
“He,” Georgia confirmed after a second. “I bet he has the best stories.”  
“Can we interview him? I need to know those stories. All of them. Immediately.”  
“If he tells us, he’ll have to kill us,” said Georgia.  
“Steven! We want to talk to the psychic. Email him a LOT.”  
“Oh, definitely,” said Steven. “I’m emailing him right now.”  
“Doot deet doo…. never should have gone cold. They still had some physical evidence from the crime scene that I was able to get a read on. When we put that together with the visions I picked up from the building, we were able to pinpoint some suspects. I linked up with another psychic who finds people and things in the present, and we located them. One is dead and the other…legal proceedings are ongoing.  
“By the way, I was at your Nashville show, and it was excellent. Keep doing you, and give Elvis a cookie because he’s so handsome, Arch (he/him).”  
I squealed out loud. In my car. In the precinct parking lot. So many emotions. First off, that was my Arch. It couldn’t be anyone else. Second, he’d actually done as I suggested and emailed them, which just warmed my heart. Third, HE SOLVED THE AUSTIN YOGURT SHOP MURDERS AND DID NOT TELL ME ABOUT IT.  
As I walked up to the precinct, who should be standing outside but Arch himself? And Steve, of course.  
I opened my mouth to say something, but I realized he was on the phone.  
“So, it’s negative? She doesn’t have the recessive gene at all?” Arch was saying. “Holy shit. Hunter, that’s great! Your kids aren’t gonna go blind! …Wait, what? Already? Congratulations! Tell Thea congrats from me, too.” He groaned. “I see you’re already practicing dad jokes… Love you too. Go catch killers. ‘Bye.”  
“Hey Arch,” I said to let him know I was nearby.  
“Hey Estrella. I’m gonna be an uncle.” He was beaming.  
“Arch, that’s excellent!” I said. We walked into the precinct.  
“So, I listened to the minisode this morning…” I said, getting us some coffee.  
“Yeah. I emailed them.”  
“No shit. I heard.” I handed him coffee. “Did they email you back? Are you going to get to meet them?”  
“We’re talking about it.”  
“How long have you been sitting on this?”  
“Only a couple of days. Early stages. No point in bringing it up if it might not happen.”  
“Oh, it’s happening. If I have to drive you to LA myself tied up in the back seat, it’s happening,” I informed him.  
He laughed. He actually laughed. “Tell you what. If I go, you go with me.”

Arch:   
Detective Borrowman identified Clara. Her name was Clara Louise Williams, and she’d been missing for months. We gathered in Carol’s reading room to try and find the rest of her, and hopefully her killer.  
“I think it’s telling me she’s in multiple pieces,” said Carol, “because I’m getting multiple locations.”  
“Then I will get multiple search warrants,” said Detective Borrowman.  
It’s a good thing he did. The killer had two different chest freezers full of body parts in two different locations as well as a collection of human skulls. Yes, several of them turned out to be his victims.  
I helped identify remains in the morgue alongside Jon’s mother. There was no hugging this time, thank goodness. Garrett and Estrella took turns handling the camera for readings. I liked working with Estrella better and wondered if I could persuade Jim to hire her.  
It was like the world’s worst jigsaw puzzle. At least there were only two victims we hadn’t previously found parts belonging to. The sound of power tools haunted my dreams for quite a while. It was bad, but a relief as it replaced the assault rifle fire and puddles of my own blood. And Kyle’s.  
The killer lawyered up fast. We didn’t need his confession. We had a rock solid case.  
I may have called my brother to gloat. Just a little. In the most loving way possible.  
“Hey, so you know that guy you couldn’t find in Memphis?”  
“Yeah… Oh, shit! Is he the Nashville Easter Bunny?”  
“…Is that seriously what they’re calling him?”  
“Yes. Have you been under a rock?”  
“No. In a morgue. And a really disgusting garage. That is simultaneously the best and the worst name for a serial killer ever.”  
“I know, right?”  
“Anyway, I caught him and you didn’t. Neener neener.”  
“Bastard.”  
“If I’m a bastard, so are you,” I said. It was an old joke.  
“Seriously, though, Arch, how are you doing?”   
“I’m fine.”  
“Real fine or fake fine?”  
“…Closer to real fine than I’ve been,” I told him.  
“I know you’re real fine because you look just like me.”   
I groaned. You can’t hear finger guns over the phone, but I know that’s exactly what Hunter was doing, because Hunter is the cheesiest cheese to have ever cheesed and he likes it that way.  
“So, do you want me to send you your stuff?” Hunter asked.  
I hesitated.  
“You bought a house. You need furniture.”  
I did miss my guitars. I missed them a lot. But everything I owned held impressions of Kyle. Everything.  
“You know what?” I said. “Yes. Send it to me.”  
“Good. Good. I will, little brother.”  
“You are four minutes older.”  
“Older is older.”  
When we hung up, I was smiling. That’s what Hunter does. He makes you smile.

Estrella:

Arch travels with a blanket that he spreads over a seat before he sits down in an airport or on a plane. He bought a whole row of seats and sat in the middle. He’s the only person I’ve ever met who prefers the middle seat – it’s where he touches the least amount of the airplane. I sat on the aisle so no one could brush past him.  
“Thanks for coming with me,” he said as we settled in to read or listen to audiobooks for the duration of the flight.  
“I can imagine it would be rough doing this on your own,” I said.  
“That’s an understatement.”  
Arch travels with a sleeping bag and pillowcases. I couldn’t figure out why until we got to our hotel room. He touched both beds and said, “I’ll take this one.”  
“Why?”  
“Fewer people have fucked on it.”  
Ah. That’s what the sleeping bag was for - so he could actually sleep instead of reliving other peoples’ trysts or whatever else might have happened on the beds.   
Arch travels with nightmares. I found that out the first night we were in LA. I woke up around 3am to find him sitting up and clinging to Steve like the dog was a life raft and he was drowning.   
“Are you ok?” I asked him.  
“Did I wake you?” he murmured. His voice sounded thick, teary.  
“No,” I told him. “Are you ok?”  
He took a deep, shaky breath and let it out. “Yeah…”  
“Well, that’s a lie,” I said. I didn’t have to be psychic to know that.  
“Could you…hold my hand and think about Marigold?”  
“Sure,” I said. “Will that help?”  
“I think so…”  
I got out of my bed and sat next to him. “Ok. Lie down.” I thought as hard as I could about Marigold at the dog park and held his hand. It felt like a hand, shaking and warm. I don’t know if I expected a static shock or icy skin or what, but it felt odd for his hand to just be a normal hand.  
I held on until he relaxed into sleep.  
The next morning, we got to meet Steven right after breakfast when he came to pick us up from the hotel, and Steven got to meet Steve. Steven’s mustache is in fact as epic as the internet says it is.  
Georgia and Karen are just as sweet and funny in person as they sound on the podcast. The Exactly Right office is full of the cute gifts from fans that they describe on the podcast, and everybody there is so nice. They set us up with Cokes and water and made sure Arch had everything he needed before the interviews got started.   
I’d never been in a recording studio before. There’s a lot more machinery than you think. There were a lot of wires to warn Arch about, but Steve and I didn’t let him trip.  
The interview began with the sorts of pleasantries you’d expect.  
“Y’all, it’s amazing to be here. I’m a huge fan,” Arch said.  
“Well, we’re big fans of you, too,” said Georgia.  
“You sound like you’re from Texas. Are you from Texas?” asked Karen.  
“Born in Houston, used to live in Austin.”  
“Have you ever been to the Alamo? Just curious,” Karen said.  
Arch smiled, like this was a question he’d gotten before. “Yes. And the answer to the next question you’re going to ask is also yes. The impressions are faint, but they are there.”  
“I need to know more about this immediately,” said Karen.  
“I was there to authenticate some artifacts to help a professor from UT with his book. Book made the New York Times Bestseller list, so he got his money’s worth. I treated myself to a MASSIVE prickly pear margarita after those readings. It was a lot bloodier than the movies.”  
“So how come you went into the FBI and aren’t, like, a history professor somewhere?” asked Georgia after some more chitchat.  
“My brother and I didn’t have much of a choice,” Arch admitted. “I’m a third generation FBI psychic. My grandfather basically founded the psychic division, so… My mom didn’t have a helluva lot of choice either. It was just kind of expected that that’s where we’d end up.”  
They chatted about what that was like for a bit and what made Arch leave the FBI. He wasn’t very specific and even made the “if I told you I’d have to kill you” joke.  
“What’s the highest profile case you’ve ever worked on?” asked Georgia.  
“That you can tell us about,” put in Karen.  
Arch was silent for a moment. “Probably the Miami Bomber.”  
My eyes went wide. He was really going to talk about it. On a podcast.  
“Oh, shit,” said Karen.  
“Psychics were involved in that?” asked Georgia.  
“Very heavily involved in most aspects of it. My brother finds things, so he’d find the bombs. I’d diffuse them and try to get information about the bomber from them.”  
“Wait. You disarm bombs?” asked Karen.  
“Sure. If I can touch them, I can take them apart.”  
“Just, like, take them apart. Like reverse IKEA furniture.”  
“Yup. Slightly more dangerous than a bookshelf, but yeah.”  
“You know, easy,” said Karen.  
“When we caught him… that last bomb….” Archer took a deep breath. The joking tone was gone. “It, um. I have massive PTSD about that.”  
“Oh, shit,” said Karen.  
“You can stop right there if you want to,” said Georgia. “It’s ok.”  
“No, I should talk about this. You guys are so open about your mental health issues, and I really appreciate that. Besides… my therapist says I should talk about this.”  
“With hundreds of strangers on a podcast,” said Karen.  
“Sure. Why not? It works for you. Some parts are still classified, but…” He shrugged. “When we finally tracked him down, we didn’t know it at first. My brother found the bomb, just like usual. My anchor Kyle and I went in with a couple of other agents. I disarmed the bomb, just like usual.” Arch paused and looked down at his hands. Steve leaned into his legs. Arch patted the dog’s head.  
“It wasn’t usual, though, was it?” said Georgia.  
“It was an ambush. The unsub comes out shooting. He’s on a catwalk and he has multiple assault rifles lined up and ready to go. We return fire. Well, they did. I haven’t carried a gun since I was 25. And then… I’m not 100% sure what happened. I, um. I got shot.”  
“Holy fuck,” said Georgia.  
“I was ok. Eventually. My anchor… He wasn’t. Three agents died bringing that bombing fucker in.”  
There was silence.  
“Oh my God,” said Georgia finally.   
“Let’s… take a break,” said Karen. I could see tears on her face.  
“A break would be good,” I said.  
“Can I get you guys anything?” asked Steven.  
“Coffee with cream. For both of us,” I told him.  
Nobody said much for a while. Arch put his head to Steve’s head and scratched his ears until Steven came back with coffee. Arch took a deep swig of coffee.  
“All righty,” said Arch. “How about I tell you more about that hometown murder I mailed in?”  
That interview wrapped up around lunchtime. Karen and Georgia took us to lunch, which is all I have ever wanted from life. Arch was a little quiet, so I took up some conversational slack while keeping an eye on him. He seemed ok. Surprisingly ok.  
For the afternoon, we went back to the studio for another interview with Billy Jensen of The Murder Squad about some cold cases Arch had worked and could talk about. Sadly, we did not get to meet Paul Holes. Billy Jensen, though, is really cool and taller than I am, which is pretty damn tall. He offered to take us to Disneyland the next day. Arch accepted the invitation.  
He slept soundly that night. Or at least, nightmares didn’t wake him up.  
Disneyland is awesome, for the record. I now own a hat with Minnie Mouse ears   
Arch turned to me as we stood in line for the Haunted Mansion. “I’m glad we did this,” he said. I’m not sure if he meant the interviews, Disneyland, opening up, or all of it.  
“Me, too,” I told him. “More popcorn?”  
“Yes, please.”

The End


End file.
